All the Elements for Disaster: Unleashed
by Radicool223
Summary: The Unleashed adaptation for my story. Please don't skip.
1. Prologue

**This is the prologue to my new… Unleashed adaptation? I don't know. This time, it is necessary to read, so if you were thinking about tuning out, you're gonna be missing something awesome!**

**Wolvmbm: Yep, Tank is going to be there… soon…**

**Peacock Cheesesteak: Zor was my inspiration.**

**Thatdudethere789: Gotta go fast.**

**Mr. S the weapons master: I deliberately left that out for length's sake.**

**ash the pokevenger: Here! Have a potato!**

**TheAncientVamPie: PM me what makes sense… you might be right. PM meeeee! (The Fly reference)**

**RainbowDash and Tia 4EVR: (Invisible thumbs up)**

**RandomPerson65: I see you are mimicking Bulk Biceps?**

Rainbow Dash waited impatiently on a hill in the middle of a plain. Cobalt had asked her to meet him there, and just like usual, she'd gotten there earlier than him. One _whole_ day had passed since they had shared their first kiss, and she hoped that this meeting was about their relationship. To her surprise, he seemed to have been avoiding this talk, offering to help the others in rounding up the last bit of chaos to fix. It had worried her for a while, but then she'd realized that he wouldn't have told her he loved her if he hadn't meant it.

She heard a swish of wind and felt the snapback created by it as she watched a blue blur flash by and stop in front of her. "Hey Dash." the blur said, the dust it had kicked up now clearing.

"Spikes." she acknowledged with a nod. "Fine day, is it not?"

"It is indeed." the two cracked a smile, but then Cobalt's expression got serious once more. "Well, now that we know how we both feel… I think it's time we talked."

There it was: the moment she knew would come. "Sure. About what?"

He shifted uncomfortably. "Well, about… I just wanted to clarify…"

She rolled her eyes. "Spit it out already, man!"

He exhaled. "I need to know whether we're… boyfriend and girlfriend."

Rainbow shoved him lightly. "Well of course we are." she grinned. "Of course, if you _want_ to be."

She enjoyed watching him squirm as he fumbled with his words. "Yeah, I mean, of course! I just didn't want to, you know, assume." he hadn't expected she'd make this so difficult.

"Okay then." she shrugged. "If we're over that whole Discord thing, and we both feel the same way about each other, then let's go tell the others."

"Great!"

The two turned to take off, but then heard a familiar, annoying voice. "We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you this important message!" They whirled around. "Bokkun?!"

"How the heck did _you_ get here?" Cobalt asked.

"Eggman had me stuffed up his sleeve!" the little robot explained. "And now he has a message for you!"

Rainbow glanced at Cobalt. "Didn't you kill him?"

The dark blue pegasus shrugged. "I thought so."

"WATCH MY MESSAGE YOU–" Bokkun raged, but then stopped himself mid-insult. "No. The therapy videos tell me not to do this." he looked up with a smile. "_Please_ watch my message, you sorry excuses for life forms." he pressed the button on the side of the yellow television he'd brought as he flew away, and a video began to play, featuring our (least) favorite mad scientist.

"_Is this thing on? We're rolling? Yes? Okay. Cobalt Spikes and Rainbow Dash! I know you both probably thought I was dead, but I'm not! I've got a giant army up in space, and I'll blow Equestria up if you don't surrender your freedom and become my slaves immediately._" the screen went black and an auditory message played. "_This message was entirely supported by the Eggman Empire, where we don't care about your safety one bit. Thank you._"

The yellow TV exploded in both the pegasi's faces, leaving them both black and slightly charred. Rainbow wiped her face off and examined her slightly burnt mane. "Gosh, you think we'd learn!"

"Eggman's not dead?" Cobalt questioned. "How… and he wants us to become his slaves? _And _he's got a space army?! _And_ we don't have the emeralds?! We're doomed!"

"Hey, remember. We've got the elements, and that worked with Chaos." Rainbow reassured him. "Don't worry, dude. We'll get this done right." she laughed, her usual arrogance and tough girl attitude shining through. "Hah! By the time we're done, they won't know which side of Eggman is the face!"

Cobalt smiled. "All right, let's go and fetch the elements then."

ONE SONIC UNLEASHED THEME LATER

Cobalt bursted into the library and swept past Twilight, little more than a blue blur that talked. "Gotta grab the elements! Eggman's back! Bye!" he called as he zipped back out the door.

Twilight glanced at the damage his flying had caused. "That's _another _lamp." she sighed. "Oh well, I guess if they really need the elements…"

UP IN SPACE, YO

Eggman surveyed his massive army of robots and space ships, laughing maniacally as he realized that there was no Doctor with a futuristic screwdriver to disassemble his circuits _this_ time. Then he felt the ship he was on shake with an impact. "Oh?"

Two forms were soon visible through the smoke they had caused by making that crater in the first place. Cobalt Spikes and Rainbow Dash stood side by side at the front of a space ship, provoking several security bots to sound the alarm, a hight pitched wail that would set any person into a panic.

Eggman pushed an intercom button. "All available units, fire on those pegasi!" he screamed into the button. "And an iced latte please! I missed last night's sleep!"

Cobalt glanced at his partner, who gave a slight nod, and the two launched themselves at the nearest robot.

**Boom! Next day update up in this house! I've got the beginnings of the next chapter that I intended to put in this, but didn't because I believe that all stories deserve a prologue, so you can expect to see an update within the next three days or so. Please, review your thoughts.**


	2. Night of the Werepony

**Here it is again: the second update of Unleashed. I know there is a little bad reception from some people… **_**cough**_** Wolvmbm **_**cough, **_**but I'm sure I can clear up any confusion.**

**flutterlikeanangel: Thank you.**

**ash the pokevenger: Because potatoes are fun!**

**Mr. S the weapons master: Way past cool?**

**Wolvmbm: You're not sounding mean, I totally understand your concerns. 1: There is a simple explanation for anything that might seem out of character from Cobalt. Two, actually. First, he got his mind wiped clean and dumped in Equestria. You get amnesia; you don't know who you were before, thus a complete personality rewrite. You might retain a few features of before, but there's gonna be some new stuff imprinted on you by those you first met. Second, he's kind of edging on insanity, and all the stuff that has happened lately might register into paranoia or irrational fear for him. Combine that with the bad feelings he might associate with Eggman from the past and the ultimatum the scientist proposed, and you've got one heck of a fear generator. Therefore, think of it as less of a worry wart, and more of a just-the-right-amount-of-rational-fear wart. And you're right, this world doesn't pose many threats, so he may have gotten a little softer. After all, he has a girlfriend now. 2: Due to the darkness of space and the note only being sent to Cobalt and Rainbow Dash, I'm not even sure if they know. My note taker cat isn't **_**that**_** good.**

**Thatdudethere789: Thanks!**

**Tf2sniper326: Can't wait to write more! I've been looking forward to this, and now I'll be looking forward to Black Knight!**

**RandomPerson65: Sorry. I thought it would only be fair.**

**Peacock Cheesesteak: Love that song!**

**New reviews from the other story:**

**Galaxy Sonic: Thank you! Sorry to confess that I spent only a little time on it…**

**flutterlikeanangel: She's waited a while for this, hasn't she? They both have.**

**werewolf lover99: Um, because they've only met each other what seems like five months… and they've never actually gone on a date. So, plenty of reasons.**

**Guest: Short?**

**werewolf lover99: Cool story bro. Tell it again (don't though, I'ma messin' with ya).**

Let us recap on where we were before. Just after Discord's resealing into stone, our heroes got a message from the supposedly dead Eggman, who wanted them to sacrifice their freedom (and possibly their lives) to him in order to save their world from being blown up by his space armada. Naturally, they sprung into action and, with the physical elements of harmony stashed somewhere on them, got straight to Eggman's mothership, where they hope to destroy his master plan.

Cobalt Spikes launched himself toward the bigger robots in order to indirectly protect Rainbow, who might pose a weaker target. It was unlikely that she would let herself get caught, but if she did, she was small… and you might guess what would happen next. He first targeted a green one with a hammer, and first flew circles around it, provoking it to swing around in a circle with its hammer ready to smash whatever was in its way. Then he directed it toward another with an array of knives and allowed the two to… well, it wasn't pretty if you were a robot, let's say that.

Rainbow was a bit miffed that he'd taken on the bigger ones first, but did her job as well with the smaller ones. Instead of letting them destroy themselves, which she figured would take too long with the sheer numbers of the small ones, she aimed for brute force, using the moves she'd developed as a martial artist (yeah, that's right; she's a black belt). She front flipped over one's head and kicked it in the back as hard as possible. She figured she'd hit it right in the batteries, because it fell over, dead. She sweep kicked another, and when a mistimed jump sent her toward one, she snorted in amusement and pulled up sharply with her wings, which she had been waiting to use.

Eggman was furious. "HOW ARE ONLY _TWO_ OF THOSE WRETCHED TECHNICOLOR HORSES MANAGING TO DECIMATE MOST OF MY STRIKE FORCE?!" he screamed into his microphone. "KILL THEM ALREADY!" just as he said this, he saw two streaks of rainbow and blue come shooting towards him out of the robot rubble. "OPEN FIRE, ALL TURRETS!"

Sixty or so motion sensor turrets opened fire on the two, shooting to kill. The flying strategy they'd chosen proved prudent now, because the turrets missed every single shot. They'd decided beforehoof to fly with one going high and one low, which was much more effective than one after the other, which would give the turrets a shot at the first, and if they missed, probably a hit at the second. This way, they not only avoided that problem, but gave the turrets more AI confusion, since they probably weren't sure what altitude to shoot at.

Eggman growled. "If you want someone destroyed, just do it yourself." he grumbled as he pressed a button and his egg pod descended through a hole into the floor.

Soon the pegasi had bypassed the problem of the turrets but immediately ran into the giant robot with Eggman inside. Cobalt got one look at the robot's shape and began shaking uncontrollably. "OH CRAP!" the robot just happened to be a giant orca whale. Rainbow glanced at him, surprised, but then realized a little of his past might be breaking through. What could traumatize him about that form, though, wasn't immediately evident. At the moment, it seemed like the only way it could attack was through the mouth. Until the arm popped out of the side. That was freaky.

Eggman cackled over the loudspeaker he had planted in the robot. "Prepare to die!"

ONE SONIC UNLEASHED THEME LATER

Eggman began to gloat. "How do you like this robot, Cobalt? I made it especially for you!"

Cobalt's eyes had glazed over and he was staring off into space, literally, muttering, "Whales… why whales… why water… why beaches… why?"

Eggman seemed taken aback by the level of post-traumatic stress Cobalt was going through. "Um, hello?" he waved the whale's hand in front of the blue pegasus' face, not eliciting a response. "I can't really taunt you if you're not paying attention."

Rainbow was tired of talk. "Look, are we going to fight or what?! I just trashed some robots and I am _pumped_!"

"Oh yes. GET A LOAD OF THIS!" Eggman fired spiked balls from the whale bot's mouth, sending them rolling at high speeds toward the light blue pegasus, who dodged them all in a crazy fast hopscotch type manner. Her hooves were going so fast that they blurred. She set down lightly. "Got anything else?"

"What?! That was all my ammunition!" Eggman exclaimed. "How?"

"Pegasus adrenaline." Rainbow explained quickly. "Makes everything faster."

"Well, I have nothing left to fire… so I'ma just slowly crush you." Eggman decided, using the whale's arm to grab both pegasi in a death grip.

_That_ shocked Cobalt back into action. He seemed so scared of the robot that he started screaming profanity and whacking the fingers of the hand trying to get away. Rainbow Dash realized that if she didn't do something quick, they were going to be just skin sacks of broken bones. So naturally she brought out the elements and started channeling their power. They circled around the two and converged, creating their harmonic forms they had used against Chaos.

Rainbow slipped out of the grasp of the robot as Cobalt spin dashed its arm to pieces.

Eggman gulped, he hadn't been prepared for this. "Time to leave now." he muttered, and ejected from the robot, zooming through the wall, which opened for him and closed afterward.

Cobalt looked around before ordering, "Rainbow, you take the fleet out, I'll handle Eggman. Meet up wherever you see me spin dash into. Go!" Rainbow saluted and zipped off, while Cobalt charged a spin dash and busted through the walls, which Eggman had closed in a feeble attempt to stop his arch-nemesis. After smashing through so many walls that his head hurt, Cobalt finally came to the place where Eggman had chosen to make his final stand… or fallen out of his Eggmobile. Who knows, who cares?

Cobalt towered over the cowering Eggman, who had tried to make himself look as defenseless as possible. "Please, Cobalt! Give me a chance! I'll–I'll start over! I'll turn over a new leaf, I swear!"

Rainbow Dash landed lightly beside her friend. "You done yet?"

"Nah, he's actually showing remorse. That's new."

Eggman grinned, seeing their distraction as the perfect opportunity to use his master plan, the reason he'd tricked them into coming here in the first place. He pressed a small button on the wristwatch he had, and six… tall little things popped out of the floor that surrounded the pegasi. As they stumbled back in confusion, the six … tall little things started producing little rings of energy that pushed them both to the center and seemed to cause intense pain. As the two squinted through the pain, they were horrified to see that the elements had exited their bodies and were now floating in a circle around them.

Needless to say, this terrified both of them. But Cobalt slipped his hoof around Rainbow's and gave a forced yet reassuring grin. Neither of them could hear it over the crackle of electricity, but he mouthed the word, 'together'. She nodded and they squeezed their eyes against the pain.

Eggman's machine extracted the energy from the elements and shot a giant purple beam out of the space ship and straight down to the center of the planet itself.

As the three watched, the planet broke into pieces, separating into what looked like a giant jigsaw puzzle. As they watched giant purple beast rose up from the cracks, and then dissipated spreading across the entire land of Equestria.

The machine shut down and the elements fell to the ground drained and powerless, turned black by the extraction process. A much different process had taken over the two ponies, though. They felt something… strange. Itchy, almost. Cobalt looked at his legs and realized that the fur was sprouting more coarsely around his hooves and chest, the blue turning navy and the newer thick hair turning white. Rainbow heard her teeth creak and then felt them elongate into sharp fangs with her tongue. Lastly, their wings sucked in all the feathers and turned into bat wings, and their eyes became slit-pupiled. Their manes were the only thing unchanged.

"A trap." Rainbow realized. "This was a trap."

"You've– you've really done it this time, Eggman." Cobalt growled, literally growled, since his new voice sounded gravely and deeper.

"Nice look, you two." Eggman commented. "Festive. But I'm afraid you'll have to go now, since you're not part of my plan." he pressed another button on the wristwatch that opened the airlock and sent the two flying into space along with the drained elements.

ONE LONG FALL LATER

By the time the two actually got close to the shattered planet, Cobalt had fallen asleep and Rainbow had come to terms with her inevitable death. All of a sudden, the two were encased in green bubbles that lasted for a few seconds, woke them up, and cancelled all their current momentum. Then the bubbles were gone, leaving the two to fall the last little bit onto an grassy island with a windmill.

Cobalt landed with his face in the dirt, while Rainbow managed to splay out on her stomach. These new forms must've been very durable, because they didn't even get scratched. As they got up off the ground, groaning from the shock of the impact, Cobalt noticed something on the earth next to him. "What the?" he picked it up, realizing that it was alive. It being a purple furred thing with a white muzzle, tail, and little bit of hair, and pixie wings. "Are you okay?"

"You killed it." Rainbow said. "You landed on it and killed it."

Cobalt rolled his eyes. "Of course I didn't kill it. It's still breathing, isn't it?" he held the thing by its tail and poked its head. "Hey, wake up."

The creature moaned. "Ugh, no more… I can't eat any more." its eyes fluttered open and he took in the looks of the pony who was holding him. The response was instantaneous. "Ahh! Don't eat me, monsters! I taste bad!" the thing screamed and ran behind the nearest boulder.

"Hey, hold it." Rainbow demanded. "Monsters? I know sometimes I'm not at my best, but I'm pretty sure I don't look like a– holy crap!" she'd gotten a glimpse of herself in a mirror shard, and glanced at Cobalt. "Double crap! You're a monster too!"

"Wait, I thought we'd noticed how each other looked when we were falling before…" Cobalt muttered, rubbing his chin.

FLASHBACK

The two pegasi were just entering the stratosphere. "Hey Dashie?" Cobalt began. "You look like Nightmare Moon right now."

"So do you." Rainbow commented. "Say, weren't we doing something?"

"Oh yeah. AAAAAAHHH!"

"AAAAAAHHH!"

END FLASHBACK

"Oh, forget it." he muttered. "Dude, we're not going to hurt you."

The pixie creature seemed to consider his words, examining the fanged smile and creepy looking eyes. "Well, okay then." it decided. "Nice to meet you, monster guys."

"I am _not_ a monster guy." Rainbow huffed. "I am a monster _girl_." she turned away, muttering about little random creatures and how they always assumed things that weren't true.

"_Any_way." Cobalt moved on. "What's your name?"

"My name." the creature thought. "My name is… GAH! I don't remember my name! Who am I?! Where do I go?!" it was now running in circles on the ground.

"Welcome to my world…" Cobalt muttered. "Look, calm down." he ordered the creature, who immediately froze on the spot, still a little worried about the predatorial look of these strange ponies. "Look, we'll help you with your memory if you want. I'm sure there's somepony around here who knows you." he glanced down. "Unlike me."

"Yeah, we'll help." Rainbow agreed. "If you have memory trouble, we know how to help… maybe."

"Really?" the creature sounded excited. "Thank you so much!" his face took on a doubtful expression. "But I still don't know your names.

"I'm Cobalt Spikes." Cobalt said.

"And I'm Rainbow Dash, second fastest flier in all of Equestria!" Rainbow gestured toward herself. "And before you ask– every pony does, by the way– we _are_ now boyfriend and girlfriend."

"Still testing the waters." Cobalt explained. "Just got together yesterday."

"Oh, well nice to meet you, monster gu… uh, Cobalt Spikes and Rainbow Dash." the little pixie creature said, shaking both of their hooves politely.

"So what are we called now?" Cobalt wondered, examining their monstrous new forms. "Hair beasts?"

"No way!" Rainbow protested. "Since this happened at night… and on a full moon… how about 'werepony' as a general term?"

At that moment, the sun came up over the hill and bathed the area in a radiant light. The two 'wereponies' felt another sensation, almost like they were breaking out of a prison, and in a flash of light, they turned back into their regular selves, staring down at themselves in surprise.

"Well, Dashie." Cobalt concluded. "Wereponies it is."


	3. Clopotos

**This… is… CHAPTER 3!**

The trio of two pegasi and one… pixie thing… ascended a flight of stairs to a city that had yet to be assigned a name. Said city was by the sea and, according to Rainbow Dash, had stone versions of what she considered Cloudsdale-esque architecture. As they neared the entrance, she brushed up affectionately beside her companion, Cobalt Spikes. "Isn't it beautiful?"

The dark blue pegasus smiled and gave a low whistle. "Heck yeah."

The pixie creature noticed a sign up ahead. "Hey, it says this place is called 'Clopotos'." (**I know how some of you think. It's not that word in **_**that **_**sense. By the way, most of these cities will have names with horse puns.**)

"Where's that?" Cobalt asked, provoking Rainbow Dash to pull out a map of Equestria that she'd packed in her saddlebags. "Err, it says here that it's 5000 miles to the east of Ponyville."

"Ponyville?" the pixie thing asked. "Is that where you two are from?"

"Yeah." Cobalt answered. "Or, at least she is. I don't know where I'm from… I've got amnesia too."

"Most likely Cloudsdale." Rainbow butted in. "But I'm sure I'd have remembered you… and Fluttershy probably would've too. Hmm…"

"Let's stick with not from around Ponyville and surrounding areas until I get further knowledge." Cobalt summed up. His eyes narrowed. "Hey, you… pixie guy. Why don't you go scout ahead, see what's there?"

The pixie saluted. "You can count on me, Cobalt Spikes." He hovered away with his tiny bee wings.

As soon as he was gone, Cobalt turned toward Rainbow with a frown. "Okay, we've gotta talk about my memory."

"Specifically?"

"Why it didn't come back. I've been mulling it over for a while." Cobalt frowned. "I wasn't particularly thinking about it at the time, but we'd decided the emeralds would restore my memories… but it didn't." he let out a low growl of exasperation. "And to make things worse, I think it's coming back even slower now!"

Rainbow thought about it and suggested the worst possible case scenario, just to put it out there. "Maybe they just aren't ever going to be fully there."

Cobalt glared at her with hurt in his eyes. "Thanks for the optimism, Miss Sunshine."

"What? I'm just trying to think of everything!" Rainbow defended her words. "If you won't think of it, then I think I should!"

"Maybe you could be a little more helpful instead of depressing!"

Their raised voices and arguing had attracted some unwanted attention, and so they cut their dispute short. "Let's talk about this later." Rainbow muttered. "Right now we should catch up with him."

"Besides, we have _bigger_ problems than my memory troubles." Cobalt said somewhat bitterly, ironically fishing the element of honesty out of his saddlebags to try and exemplify his point.

As they walked up the stairs to the raised cobblestone sidewalk, Rainbow murmured an apology. "Look… I'm sorry. I should've been more sensitive."

"I forgive you." Cobalt sighed. "And I'm the one who should be apologizing. I let my temper get the best of me. I'm sorry for that." He smiled slightly, tapping the side of his head. "It kinda comes with having your mind messed with a lot."

"So does being pessimistic." Rainbow added. "You think I'd normally be like that?"

"Yes."

They were both smiling at this point. "Why I…" she launched herself against his side and hugged his neck, half affectionately and half death-threatening. "You oughtta show more respect!"

Cobalt rolled his eyes, pushing her off his neck and catching her in his forelegs. "And _you_ should remember that I'm stronger than I look."

She blushed and grinned, but then frowned as a polite but accented voice cleared its throat, and the stallion it belonged to asked, "Could you two take your… ahem, 'lovers' quarrel' elsewhere?"

Cobalt gulped, realizing that ponies were no longer poking fun at them, but genuinely meaning everything they said when they talked about the two being 'lovers'. "Uh, sure, sir." He set Rainbow back on her hooves. "Come on, Dashie."

"Er, yeah." The cyan pegasus said, awkwardly backing away with her boyfriend. A little ways away, she glared back at the guy who'd spoken. "Rude much?"

"Eh, give the guy a break." Cobalt pardoned the foreign pony. "Customs could be different here."

"Oh, fine." Rainbow muttered. "Hey, there's… him!" she pointed at a nearby ice cream stand where the pixie creature was ogling a massive ice cream cone.

Cobalt glanced at her. "Him needs a name."

"Yes, him does." She agreed.

They finally got to the ice cream stand, where the pixie thing was muttering about the ice cream cone being busily built by a short, stumpy, overweight, old stallion who was way past his prime. "Like it?" the old stallion asked as he placed two cones on top of the mound of ice cream and toppings. "This here is the pride of Clopotos, y'see! The Chocolate Sundae Supreme is what this here is called!"

"Chocolate… Sundae… Supreme…" the pixie drooled. "I'll take it! How much!?"

Cobalt glanced at Rainbow. "I suppose he doesn't realize that we're paying?"

"You have the money with you." She laughed. "_You're_ paying."

JUST A LITTLE LATER

"So, if I'll help you with your elements of harmony, then you'll get my memory back?" the pixie creature summed up the proposition that had just been made, his speech punctuated by occasional licks of ice cream.

"Yeah, that's about it, Chip." Cobalt shrugged.

The newly named Chip looked up from his ice cream in surprise. "Chip?"

"We've gotta call you something, don't we?" the dark blue pegasus amended his previous saying.

"Oh I get it." Rainbow agreed, her eyes lighting up with realization. "Chocolate chips; Chip."

"Oh, that makes sense." Chip realized. "Chip… Chip… yeah, I like it!"

A little ways afterward, Rainbow Dash noticed that the sun was beginning to crest a little bit. "Come on, let's explore a little bit before the sun goes down. We might find something."

EXPLORATION TIME… JUST BEFORE EVENING

The city of Clopotos was fun to speed through, to say the least, but pretty soon the trio noticed something that really worried them… or at least, two of them. Yeah, there was an infestation of robots all over the city.

The first time they encountered them, Chip had split off from the group to try and get some information about how to find something to help the elements in their present condition, leaving the two speedsters to do their own thing. Cobalt was having lots of fun, feeling as if he'd done this many times before. Well, that was, until they saw the first robot.

It closely resembled those that they had fought on the spacecraft, but this time they were on the soil of Equestria itself. On their home turf. Needless to say, this really pulled on the pair's nerves. "What is _that_ doing here?" Cobalt snarled, his anger pushing through. "I can't believe he has the nerve to–"

"Dude, calm down." Rainbow looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "You don't get this angry when you see any of his other robots. What's the problem this time?"

"I just feel… I just feel like…" Cobalt's eyes turned pure white, any traces of his usual emerald green. "He's done something like this before… worse though… much worse that just one robot. I remember very clearly. When he started doing this the first time, it led to… let to…" his face twitched and he took on a confused expression. "It led to… umm, I–I can't…" his pupils reappeared in their normal green again. He regained an ignorant smile. "What was I saying there?" he noticed Rainbow's dubious expression. "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You… you just…" she stammered. "You… remembered."

"Remembered…?" Cobalt muttered. "Remembered what?"

"You're telling me that you don't remember… remembering?" Rainbow choked on her words.

"Eh, if I can't remember it, then it must not have been important." He shrugged. "Say, what's that beeping?"

She realized that he hadn't seen the robot yet, and gave him instructions in order to prevent what had happened before from happening again. "Uh, turn around and keep looking that way."

"Why?"

"Just do it." she pleaded.

Cobalt raised his forelegs in surrender. "Okay, fine." He turned away from his girlfriend and for extra emphasis he closed his eyes.

Rainbow took action immediately and smashed the robot into bits by flying it several feet into the sky and dropping it. She felt something scrape her cheek as she dropped it, and as she landed, blood dripped onto the cobbled ground. She carefully wiped it off with her wing as she trotted over to where Cobalt was sitting. "Problem solved."

He turned around with a smile. "Didn't get the problem in the first place, but okay then." His face morphed into a concerned expression. "Hey, you're bleeding."

She wiped her face off again, and realized that blood was still flowing. "Geez… I guess I over-bleed."

"No, let me." He murmured, tenderly wiping off the blood from her cheek. She started to blush, and when she started to feel him pulling her in with his other foreleg. They nuzzled each other for a few seconds before finally coming together in a passionate kiss. They closed their eyes, and thirty or so seconds later, they broke apart.

"That was awesome." Rainbow breathed. "Sorry for worrying you back there."

"It's fine." He smiled. "Hey, the sun's going down."

It was true, Celestia's sun had finished its journey and

The two felt the same itching feeling as before, exactly the same as when what seemed like days ago on the spaceship they'd been transformed into those monster creatures. Dark gas plumed from their chests, and the dark light that had made up that giant dark creature they'd seen from the spacecraft exploded from their hooves and faces. (**Doctor Who reference there… hehe.**)

When the light and gas cleared, as if it had been a magic trick, they were the monsters once more. Cobalt glanced down at himself, his eyes piercing the dark as clearly as if it had been day. "So when the sun goes down… we turn into… this?"

"Well that sucks." Rainbow summed up. "Wanna explore some more?"

"You know it!"

IN ONE AREA OF THE TOWN

Two young pegasi walked through Clopotos, one yellow and one orange. The pair consisted of none other than Scootaloo and her obvious crush and friend, Miles Unknown. They were having a very serious conversation.

"So, Scootaloo… I realize that I probably need to go to school at some point… and I was thinking that after this week off from your school's schedule I could maybe join your class?" he asked

"Sure." Scootaloo giggled in joy. Her crush was going to go to be in her class! "I can vouch for ya with Cheerilee."

"Thank you." Miles said with a nod and a smile. "And also, since I don't yet have my special mark for my talent…" he nodded toward his blank flank. "I hoped that I could join your and your friends' little group."

"Well, we haven't thought much about adding new members, but I guess we could let you into the club." She fluttered into the air a little bit in excitement, but then flopped onto her face due to her lack of ability to really fly. "Haha… um, whoops." She blushed, gulping in fear that she'd humiliated herself.

"Heh, if you wanted to fly, all you had to do was ask. I can take you anywhere you want." Miles began to blush too.

"You're so awesome…" she murmured, putting her forelegs around his shoulders. He returned the gesture. "So are you…"

You may be able to guess what was about to come next, as it has already happened once in this very chapter. But instead of what was in the obvious, the craziness happened just as it always does.

Several purple-black monsters surrounded them, seeming to pop up from the ground out of nowhere. The two immediately separated and got into fighting positions. "What are these things?" Miles asked quietly.

"I thought you would know!" Scootaloo whisper-yelled. "You're the one who lurks in the forest all the time!"

Just as the creatures were closing in, two monster ponies busted through the line of the more threatening monsters, using strength that would measure way more than one horsepower. Pretty soon, the monsters were lying on the ground knocked out, blue and red energy flowing into the two monster ponies that had knocked them out. "You two okay?" the blue monster growled.

"Quite fine, yes." Miles muttered in response, his pupils quite shrunken at this point. "Cobalt, is that… is that you?"

"Yep, long time no see, Miles." Cobalt smiled. "Sup, Scootaloo?"

"Not much?" the orange filly tried. "Getting attacked by giant monster thingies qualify?"

"Yeah, I guess it does." The rainbow maned monster agreed. "Been a while, squirt."

"Rainbow Dash!" Scootaloo exclaimed, and hugged her big sister, pushing away a second later. "What the heck happened to you guys, though?"

The wereponies glanced at each other and cracked slight smiles. "Long story." They said at the same time.

**I'm really, horribly late. I know. I procrastinated for a week and couldn't write for this weekend, so I wrote nearly two thousand words today to make up for it. I'm really sorry, and any reviews I didn't cover this chapter will be covered in the next. I'm in a bit of a rush right now, so sorry if this is a little short. I guess my philosophy at the moment is something is better than nothing. I hope you can forgive me. I'm just finding it a little harder to write this stuff when I don't have a solid backbone for how I should separate chapters… I guess I'll leave the judging to you.**


	4. First Temple and Stagonia

**I know last chapter wasn't all that great, and I appreciate your all's advice of not taking this too seriously and living my life first and doing this second, but what do you think made me take so long in the first place? You also must remember that I'm working on a novel as well, and I have to get a set number of pages in on that per week. I hope this chapter makes up for the last one's deficiencies.**

**Tf2sniper326: Eh, I don't really let it obsess over this stuff.**

**ash the pokevenger: What?**

**flutterlikeanangel: Neither do I.**

**werewolf lover99: Yeah, but it's not school. And by the way, NO."**

**will reviera: The heck?**

**RainbowDash and Tia 4EVR: It's not a prequel, just a branch of the original that ties in between the chapter I left off on and the next episode, Lesson Zero.**

As you may recall, the current setting of this story is a coastal town called Clopotos, in the middle of the night, with our heroes having just met up with their seemingly younger equivalents… well, minus the memory loss on Cobalt and Miles' part. The current events have developed so that Cobalt Spikes and his girlfriend Rainbow Dash are now monstrous versions of themselves, though still possessing their usual personalities, and that the newcomer from the Everfree Forest, Miles Unknown… or simply Miles, has joined the youthful group that call themselves the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

I believe that recapitulation to be complete, so let the events take place.

"So, _really_, what happened to you?" Miles asked Cobalt and Rainbow, who were still putting the younger ponies into a slight shock at their monstrous appearance.

"Went up into space to stop Eggman from destroying the world, got shot with a weird thing, turned into this, wandered around town for a day… y'know, the usual." Cobalt shrugged.

"That sounds like something the old you would say…" Miles muttered under his breath, catching the attention of the rest.

"What was that?" Scootaloo asked.

"Oh, I…" the young yellow pegasus gave a guilty grin and delivered a badly executed lie to cover up the knowledge that he'd just said… which in turn was more than he was supposed to be able to know. "I said, 'that sounds pretty cool'."

"Cool? What's cool about this?" Rainbow demanded.

Cobalt smiled and gave her a one-forelegged hug. "Well, you _are_ now all huggable and soft with all that long fur."

"Don't flatter me." She sighed exasperatedly, shaking him off. "I wonder where Chip is."

"Who's Chip?" Scootaloo asked.

Cobalt used his currently reptilian-like eyes to see what they couldn't in the dark and noticed a speck in the distance that was slowly growing larger. "Here he comes now."

A few seconds later, the entire group could see the small pixie creature nicknamed Chip (**just as Cobalt Spikes was a nickname to begin with**) and flagged him down.

Chip did an excited little spin in the air as he came closer and got in the middle of the four. "Guys! You won't believe what I learned from the locals!"

"Try me." Cobalt narrowed his eyes. "I've seen a lot of stuff since I woke up."

"These really big sailor ponies told me that there was a weird temple in town, and that if we went there we might find something they called an anarchy stone!" Chip relayed.

"Anarchy…" Rainbow narrowed her eyes in thought for a second. "Anarchy stone… wait a minute! That's a chaos emerald they're talking about!"

"You sure?" Cobalt asked, looking doubtful.

"Have I ever been wrong?" she asked, before hastily adding, "About this sort of thing, of course."

"I can't argue with that logic." Cobalt said, rolling his eyes. "Okay, team. We're going to that temple. Follow me, I have a flawless sense of direction!" he galloped off along the street.

"It's the other way!" Chip yelled after him.

The blue werepony rushed past in the other direction than the one he'd gone before. "Flawless sense of direction!"

ONE SONIC UNLEASHED THEME LATER

The five entered the temple that Chip had directed them to (no help from flawless sense of direction there). Immediately, the sunlight-like beams penetrating the ceiling hit the two wereponies and transformed them back into their normal selves in a bright flash of white light. Cobalt looked wildly around for a moment. "But it's the night!"

"I don't get it either." Rainbow agreed.

"Ask Miles." Scootaloo suggested. "He knows about this kind of stuff."

"No I don't." Miles shot his friend a glare. "I'm not a walking encyclopedia."

"That's weird." Cobalt said, his eyes turning pure white once more. "You always used to seem like one."

All of a sudden he stumbled back a few steps as if struck by something, taking on a sick looking grin. "_Heh heh heh… look at all the little _weaklings_ here. So easy to _break_._" He lunged forward with all of his usual speed and knocked Rainbow Dash to the ground with a swift blow to the side of the head.

She stared up at him, shocked, as he stood over her with those white eyes and evil grin, pulling back his hoof in preparation to stomp on her with it.

As she watched, his head suddenly snapped to the side and in a worried voice he said, "No! I won't let you do this! I've kept you in check this long and I can do it forever!" his head snapped back into focus, and he agitatedly yelled, "_Fool! You will succumb eventually, why wait?!_"

"No! You'll never win!"

It was a truly horrible sight, seeing a normal stallion argue with himself like a madman, even more terrible that the argument was over whether he should kill the one he cared for more than his life.

It seemed that his good side won out, but not after being pinned to the ground by all four of the others for a good few seconds. His eyes closed for a minute and regained their usual green when they opened again. His breathing returned to a normal pattern, and he stopped struggling. "Okay guys, I'm good."

The rest heaved a sigh of relief and released him. "What _was_ that?" Rainbow asked, still mildly scared of him at this point.

"That," his face was completely serious as he looked at her. "Was all my negative emotions."

THINK OF THIS AS LIKE A COMMERCIAL BREAK CLEVERLY PLACED TO SEPARATE THIS FROM THE LAST LITTLE BIT. TV WRITERS DO IT

"Your… negative emotions?" Rainbow Dash breathed.

Scootaloo, Miles, and Chip stood to the side awkwardly, sensing that this was something for the two of them only.

Cobalt narrowed his eyes and replied, "Yep. You know, anger, fear, worry, distrust, depression, abandonment… I feel all of that."

"How… how…?"

"How do I keep it in?" he guessed her question. "It's hard. Most of the time I have to keep reasonably focused on it. I don't know what happened there though… it like, manifested or something."

"It seemed to be triggered by memory." Miles pointed out helpfully.

"Hang on a moment here." Rainbow ignored him. "You keep all that inside of you… and don't ever let it show?"

"Uh huh. Suck it up, hold it in, never let it show." He sighed. "It helps that all my friends are awesome."

Rainbow considered what he'd said. He did probably keep all of those emotions inside of him, and she really did care for him and vice-versa. But he'd also tried to kill her because of those emotions. Then again, she didn't know how strong those emotions were. If what he said was entirely true, when he was asleep he probably had terrible nightmares. She didn't like that idea at all. So instead of responding, she walked up and gave him a huge hug.

"Huh, wha?" he protested, trying to get her off. She didn't let go. "I'm trying to balance out the emotions. Good cancels bad, right?"

He smiled, surrendering to the hug and tightening it. "You just wanted to hug me, didn't you?"

"Maybe a little." She blushed, trying to fight the slight stiffening of her wings. She failed, catching the attention of Scootaloo and Miles.

"What… are you two dating or something?" Scootaloo asked confusedly.

"Yeah." Cobalt said, breaking apart from his girlfriend. "But back to what Miles said before, the… whatever just happened there… it was triggered by a little bit of memory. I forgot what I did remember, but I do remember remembering something." He stumbled over that complex sentence. "So… why would memory stimulate bad emotions?"

"I have one idea." Miles suggested. "It might be… maybe some of your memories are associated with bad feelings."

"But… you've been so attracted to the idea of getting your memories back. How can they be bad?" Rainbow murmured worriedly.

"I… I have absolutely no idea." He sighed. "Look, let's focus on getting the elements back to normal right now." He kissed her lightly on the cheek, provoking a larger blush. "So Chip, where in this shrine do you think the anarchy stone be?"

The purple creature looked happy to finally be back in the conversation. "Maybe it's on that altar in the back." He gestured to a stone table that had a purple glow emanating out of it.

"That is a definite possibility."

AT THE ALTAR TABLE

The five peered over the side of the table and saw somewhat what they'd been looking for. Granted, there was no element of harmony reenergizer, but there was something that they had been expecting: a chaos emerald.

"Awesome!" Cobalt exclaimed, reaching for the sparkling gem, but his hoof was slapped away by Rainbow Dash, who glared at him. "Uh uh, blue boy. You're not touching that. I don't want you wazzing out on me."

"But I–" he protested. "Oh come on! You've got the element of loyalty; this is _my_ thing!"

"Sorry, Cobalt. I think she's right." Miles said grimly. "You just flipped from good to bad and back again on your axis of emotions, polarity reversing (**Reverse the polarity!**), so to speak, so prolonged exposure to the potentially negative powers of chaos energy might increase the unpredictable probability of you turning… into that."

Scootaloo and Chip looked at him confusedly. "What? Dude, talk normal." The orange pegasus pleaded.

Miles facehooved. "Okay, if Cobalt does something rash like come into contact with a source of…" he searched for a simple enough term to get the point across sufficiently. "Bad… _stuff_, then he may… as you so eloquently put it, Rainbow Dash, wazz out on us again."

"I'm still here, you know." Cobalt muttered, sick of being referred to in the third person. "Fine you're right about the emerald." He grumbled, sinking back on his haunches and crossing his forehooves with a pouty expression.

Chip took the emerald and stuffed it… well, it's a safe assumption to say that we probably don't want to know. "Okay, so what's our next move?"

Miles looked thoughtful, but then glanced up with the light of an idea in his eyes. "Okay, so you guys mentioned cracks in the planet's crust, right?"

"Yeah… so?" Rainbow shrugged. "What does that matter?"

"I know this guy named Professor Pickle who's been researching this kind of stuff, something about the Gaia Manuscripts? Anyway, he's thought about this kind of stuff and he might be able to help."

"Cool! Where does he live?" Cobalt asked, pulling the map out of Rainbow's saddlebags and unfolding it.

"Someplace called Stagonia."

Cobalt carefully traced the route, and was displeased to find that the route they would have to take stretched more than a few miles across the sea, with nothing below but _water_, and also that it went across one of the fault lines he'd traced, which by his perspective in space had dark energy shooting out of it like a geyser a mile high. Essentially, these two inhibitors made it impossible for them to cross on wing. "Um, bad idea there. See?" he showed the rest the map and traced the direct route with his wingtip. "Not gonna happen."

"Don't worry about that!" Scootaloo reassured him. "Miles here can just use his metal bird to fly us over!"

"Err, it's called a hydro-biplane." Miles reminded her. "But in all essentiality, the aircraft I have docked at port here can fly over that stuff easily."

"Let's do it!"

IN MID FLIGHT

Cobalt could feel another bout of vomit rising from his chest to his throat as he clutched on for dear life to the wing of the plane, which he'd found out was nicknamed the Tornado, surrounded utterly by his worst fear, the ocean. "Sweet Celestia! If I ever needed the Doctor and his TARDIS, now is the time!" unfortunately, his plea fell on deaf ears, for nopony could even hear anything over the din of the surrounding storm of dark energy. Even if they did, Miles was putting all his focus in to not crashing the plane and killing them all, and the others were as much focused on hanging on as Cobalt was.

LANDED

Thankfully the five made it through the flight alive, and landed on a brightly lit strip of dirt that had originally been marked out for visiting pegasi. Cobalt fell on the ground and lay there, not able to summon up the initiative to get up. "Thank. Bucking. Celestia."

"Language!" Rainbow warned him in a hissed whisper, reminding him that there were pegasi younger than them there. Muttering about how things _never_ went right under his breath, he slowly got up and dusted himself off as Scootaloo, Miles, and Chip dismounted.

"Okay, first order of business." Miles said. "You guys need a day off." He narrowed his eyes at the two fifteen-year-old pegasi. "You look dead on your hooves."

"A little more fancy flying and I _would_ be." Cobalt grumbled under his breath. Audibly, he said, "That sounds perfect. We really need sometime to recuperate."

"Yeah, I think we all do." Scootaloo noted, seeing how Chip had fallen asleep on the wing of the Tornado, muttering about chocolate and pie.

LATER

The five had split up into two groups, Miles and Scootaloo going with Chip, the three promising to be near the town square if they were needed, and they had departed, leaving the two older pegasi on their own. Cobalt glanced at Rainbow. "So, what do you wanna do?"

She heard his stomach growl, and for the first time noticed how empty hers felt. "Food." She decided. "We haven't eaten in what? Two or three days?"

"Cool, I saw a spaghetti restaurant down the road. Lunch on me." He replied, noting how the sun was hanging in the middle of the sky, the one who raised and lowered it probably completely oblivious to the dangers posed to her subjects.

AT THAT RESTAURANT

The two found a table for two relatively quickly, noticing that it was the spaghetti restaurant equivalent of a locally-owned business. Rainbow laid her head on the table, resting her chin on the tablecloth and closing her eyes. "Ugh, _so_ tired."

Cobalt, meanwhile, was deep in thought. "I wish Eggman would've stayed dead the first time."

The light blue pegasus fluttered an eyelid open. "Say, you never did tell me about that adventure that you had going on with the Doctor that one time."

"It was complicated." Cobalt confessed. "See, he had this little blue house thingy that he occasionally called a Public Call Police Box but mostly a TARDIS…"

ONE EXPLANATION LATER

"… and then he stole a backpack from Eggman's base and disappeared with his friend in their TARDIS."

Rainbow had to force her jaw to close, having involuntarily hung it open in amazement. "No. Way." She stammered. "Derpy? She's travelling through time and space with an alien from another world?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"B-but I've seen both of them around town!"

"They told me that the Doctor only recently found his TARDIS and had been stuck in time (**brony song reference, look it up**) until then." Cobalt rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Yeah, that's pretty much it."

The waitress came around to their table with a bored look and a notepad. "Can I take your order? I do have to recommend the Mega Giant Spaghetti Thing eating challenge for two as part of my job, not like you'd want to order it, though."

The pair glanced at each other for a second.

"Mega Giant Spaghetti Thing?" Cobalt asked.

"Mega Giant Spaghetti Thing." Rainbow confirmed.

"Mega Giant Spaghetti Thing." They stated in unison to the waitress, who gave a smile that clearly said, 'I don't give a buck' and wrote down the order. Five minutes later, a huge plate of spaghetti with bloodred sauce dripping down the sides was delivered to their table. The two exchanged a surprised look, but immediately started gulping down the dish.

Twenty minutes later, they had finished it, completely stuffed. At some point in the middle, they _had_ done the whole same strand of spaghetti thing, but Cobalt chewed his end of the strand off early, wanting to avoid an awkward situation. When the waitress came back again, she was (somewhat) surprised to see that they'd finished it at all. She boredly announced that they'd won two spaghetti shack hats, promptly delivered out of the back.

They spent the rest of the day wandering around Stagonia (**Which, if you don't know, closely resembles Italy.**) and having fun. By the time Cobalt realized a very important element of the day, it was nearing five o'clock. "Say, Dashie? I think this just was our first date."

She blushed. "Yeah, I guess it is!"

"Say, we should probably find someplace to stay for the night." Cobalt suggested.

"Yeah, I saw a hotel a few blocks back." She gained a devious grin. "Race ya there!" she took off as she yelled those words over her shoulder.

"Hey! That's cheating!" he called after her with a giant grin, taking off.

AT THE HOTEL

The two entered the establishment and trotted up to the reception desk. "Hi, can we get a room?" Cobalt asked.

"Sure." The receptionist, who was much nicer than the waitress, by the way, said. "Room 203. You pay in the morning." She gave them the key, and the pair smiled and trotted up the stairs.

When they got to the room, though, it was evident something was wrong. Rainbow opened the door and froze for a second with her frame blocking Cobalt's view. "Uh, Cobalt? Problem."

TO BE CONTINUED…

**Okay, that's a wrap. I was originally going to make this whole chapter dark and psycho like the beginning, but then I decided to let the second half be my usual lighthearted, reference-filled style. I hope you enjoy.**


	5. Professor Pickle

**werewolflover99: I'm sorry about how angry you feel, but don't be harsh. I'm not accepting your characters on policy, not out of dislike to you or them. If you like this story for what it genuinely is, then keep reading and don't ask about your character. But if you've only been reading this to review every chapter and tell me to get your characters in, I don't want you to read it anymore. Again, I'm don't dislike you, except if you won't listen to this. I've heard from other authors that you review ever chapter of their story simply to tell them to put your characters in. I have a policy and I'm going to keep it. Sorry about how you feel.**

Cobalt Spikes raised an eyebrow. "What's the problem?"

Rainbow Dash inhaled sharply through her teeth, feeling a bit too abashed to answer that question. "Well… take a look for yourself." She sidestepped a little bit, revealing the scene that you all saw coming: a small room with one double bed that the receptionist had assumed they were okay with sharing.

Cobalt took one look at the scenario and immediately decided to sleep on the floor. "Um, Dashie? I think this might get a little awkward, so I'm going to take a blanket down to the lobby and–"

"I'm not letting you spend the night in the lobby." She interrupted. "I'm not deliberately _trying_ to make this awkward, but I don't want you waking up sore and tired."

"I don't know…" Cobalt gulped. "It seems a little… weird."

"Look Cobalt, let's be mature here and not make this more embarrassing than it already is." Rainbow told him, blushing even as she said so. "Come on, let's get ready for bed."

A LITTLE BEFORE NIGHTFALL

The two awkwardly slid under the covers from either side of the bed and left a few feet between them so it wouldn't be too embarrassing. After a few minutes of staring into the darkness, Cobalt decided to try starting a conversation. "So, what's your view on the whole memory loss thing?"

"I think you're doing better than any other pony I know could." She admitted glancing at him. "I mean, I saw how powerful those negative emotions were for myself, and you've been keeping them all inside of you for how long now? Three months?"

"No…" he thought. "Only two." He then blurted out what he was getting at to begin with, "I feel like I'm different than I was before. Like I'm a whole different pony."

"How's that?"

"I feel… like I'm sort of the same, like I have a bit of the same personality as I used to, but I have different feelings too." He gazed over at her. "Like I might not have been interested in a certain somepony."

Rainbow blushed pink, her wings shooting out.

"And I also have a question." He said. "That thing you do, the whole wing sticking out-y thing when I say or do things occasionally. Why do you do that?"

The young cyan pegasus' wings refused to go down now that attention had been called to their position, and the slight pink tint grew to a huge red mark of embarrassment. "Uh, I guess I may have touched on that topic before… but I guess I never got into detail. Okay. I probably told you that the wings are a bit of a… emotional thing stimulated by sexual ideas…"

"Yes, I believe we've gone over that topic." He said, pressing her to get on to the point. "What about me, though? Why don't _I _do that as often as you, then?"

"Ah yes, that." She gulped audibly. "Well, I probably think a little differently than you… so it only takes just the _slightest_ mention or thought of something… sexual… to get me a little… aroused…"

"Oh…" Cobalt muttered, feeling his own wings start to stiffen as he understood the implications of what she was saying. "Ooohhh. I get it…"

"I thought you might…" she snickered as she watched him become as ashamed at his thoughts as she was. "Yeah, now you understand."

"Jeez, you've been having those thoughts?" he grinned at her. "You have a naughty mind."

"Remember it's based on strong emotion too. Not just thoughts or feelings." She said quickly to cover herself. "And you have that kind of imagination too."

"So, tomorrow we go and find Professor Pickle?" he suggested, rapidly changing the topic.

"Yeah." She agreed. "We've got to put the planet back together, and _fast_."

"Fast is my middle name." Cobalt reassured her. "Seriously, you know how you're Rainbow 'Danger' Dash? Well I'm thinking about being Cobalt 'Fast' Spikes." He looked thoughtful. "You know, that sounded a lot better in my head."

"I'll bet." She leaned over and kissed him. "Good night, Spikes."

"Night, Dashie." He replied, snuggling close to her.

ONE UNLEASHED THEME LATER

Cobalt normally slept late, and he'd admit it, he was not an early riser, so when you add two entire days of no sleep, it's kind of hard to wake up early. So when he opened his eyes and saw it was light outside, there wasn't any surprise. But what confused him was the slight weight on his chest.

Curious, he looked down and saw none other than Rainbow Dash lying stretched out on her back lying horizontally on top of him, a small smile on her face and closed eyes, sprawled out with her wings at near full extension.

His first thought was: how did this happen? He wasn't sure what exactly had happened, but whatever it was, he wasn't even mad. She looked cute like that, with her mane in disarray and chest fur sticking out in all directions.

"Dashie?" he whispered. "Hey, Dash?"

She twitched and her eyes fluttered open. "Ugh, morning already?" she murmured, rubbing her eyes.

Cobalt suppressed laughter; she obviously didn't know where she was yet. "Yeah, it's morning. Now would you mind getting off me so I can get up?"

"Huh? What?" she mumbled, looking around. Finally she seemed to realize, because her pupils went small and she glanced to the side, noticing the blue in her peripheral vision. She launched herself off of him and sat there, holding her head in her hooves and gritting her teeth. "Oh my gosh! Forget that!"

"Okay." Cobalt sat up, tilted his head a little to the right, and grin formed on his face. "You did feel nice, though. So warm and soft."

She grimaced and blushed. "I told you to forget that! I didn't mean to!"

"Suuure you didn't" he teased.

"Why you…!"

LATER

The two had resolved their little… disagreement… somewhat, and paid the hotel, so they went to see Miles and Scootaloo about finding Professor Pickle. The two younger pegasi were passed out on the wings of the plane, along with Chip, so the older ones had to rouse them out of their rest.

"Hey guys?" Rainbow said uncertainly. "Hey, wake up."

"Please, Dash." Cobalt stepped in front of her, his eyes closed and an amused look on his face. If you knew Cobalt, that expression was almost certainly a bad thing. "This is a man's job." He looked up at the wings of the plane and gave an ear-shattering yell. "WAKE UP! I MADE BACON!"

"Gah!" Miles fell backwards off the wing, somehow summoning up enough initiative to land on his hooves. He glared up at the dark blue pegasus. "What was that for?!"

Cobalt shrugged. "You seem to know me better than I know myself. _You_ tell _me_." This reply caused Miles to bite back whatever he'd been about to say.

Meanwhile, Scootaloo had been roused a little more easily, having been farther into dreamland than Miles, who had been on edge all morning. "Eh? What? Is it morning?"

"Yes." Rainbow replied. She gave Cobalt a sidelong glance. "What in Celestia's name is bacon?"

Cobalt gave one of his innocent, huge, immature-looking grins. "I have _no_ idea!"

A LITTLE LATER

"So this is the place?" Rainbow asked, sizing up the large old building that was supposedly Professor Pickle's study.

"Yep." Miles confirmed.

"Well if he's anything like The Doctor, we're in big trouble." Cobalt muttered under his breath, pushing open the door.

On the inside, the place appeared to be a giant library, with high shelves piled high with books. There were huge oak tables in the middle that had stacks of papers heaped on them, and lots of tools such as compasses and protractors lying on top of maps. Scootaloo took a glance at one and saw that it had the lines where the planet had split apart, but these markings looked years old. "Hey guys, check this out!"

"What'cha got, Squirt?" Rainbow asked, looking at the map. "Yep, that'sa map of the planet pieces." She obviously was unimpressed.

"Not just _any_ map of the fractures!" Miles exclaimed, looking at it in awe. "This was made several years ago, and it's got it perfectly marked out!"

"Sounds like Pickle knows his stuff." Cobalt remarked.

"Is… is it safe?" a voice asked from behind a cabinet. A stallion with white fur and a black mane poked his head out from behind the cabinet. "Has that bad egg gone?"

"Bad egg? I suppose you mean Eggman?" Cobalt asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Yes, I suppose that was the name he mentioned." The pony seemed to regain his courage and stepped out from behind the drawers, revealing his cutie mark of a compass. "Who are you?"

"I'm Cobalt Spikes, this is Rainbow Dash, Miles, Scootaloo, and Chip."

Chip waved happily. "Hi! Want some chocolate?"

"Um… sure?" the pony cautiously took the chocolate bar from him. "I suppose you want to know why I'm hiding."

"Only a little." Scootaloo said sarcastically.

"Well, the one you mentioned, Eggman, he came in and kidnapped the Professor, now he's gone!" the pony wailed. "What am I going to do?! I'm his assistant for Celestia's sake!"

"Dude!" Rainbow interrupted him. "You're a full grown stallion! Pull yourself together!"

"Yeah, I can handle myself better than you, and I'm only fifteen!" Cobalt added. _I _have_ to handle myself better than you._ He added to himself bitterly.

"Sorry, sorry." Professor Pickle's assistant pulled himself together. "Okay, the Professor's gone, so sorry if you wanted to see him."

"Where is he, though?" Miles pressed.

"I don't know." The assistant shrugged. "Some base somewhere."

"Okay team, we're going to find some base somewhere." Cobalt announced.

SOME BASE SOMEWHERE

The base wasn't all that hard to find, not when they had a bird's-eye view on their side. The hard part was getting inside the base. It had a constant robot guard on it, and Cobalt suspected here were some nasty traps if they got past that. By the time they had deemed it safe to go in, night had fallen, and the wereponies had converted to their night forms.

Cobalt glanced around the side of the shrubbery they'd been hiding in, and gave the others a motion to follow him. Nopony had a problem with him taking the lead… in fact, they felt slightly more secure, if that didn't seem insane with him flipping out last night.

Rainbow quickly grabbed the crowbar she'd… borrowed… and pried open the doors. From there, it was easier than they'd thought. There was only one path, and there were very few turns. In all essentiality it looked more like a prison than a base of operations. They reached the end of the hallway and found a glass bubble that contained an aged light brown stallion whose white mane covered his eyes. His cutie mark was unsurprisingly a pickle, but with a magnifying glass emblazoned behind it.

"Ah, took you long enough." The Professor grumbled. "I was beginning to think that you'd never show up."

"Do you even know who we are?" Scootaloo asked.

"My rescue party, I presume?" Pickle guessed. "Yes, that's it. Thank you for coming to my rescue. It was terrible! That Eggman was not even so kind as to grant my simple request of a cucumber sandwich."

"Riiight." Rainbow said confusedly, using her limited flying ability (those bat wings were hindering) to fly up and smash the glass around the case. Once the covering was gone, Pickle's platform that had been suspended from the ceiling with him standing on it lowered itself to the floor.

"Come on then, chaps." Pickle said briskly. "Let's get back to my study."

BACK AT HIS STUDY

"So that makes sense now." Miles remarked. "The planet is splitting because Dark Gaia is escaping, and the same thing is what is causing Cobalt and Rainbow to transform at night, and there is a shrine for the elements of harmony on ever planet piece that will rejuvenate the elements and put the pieces back where they're supposed to be."

"Precisely." Pickle confirmed his summary. "I believe that Clopotos may have been the only planet piece unaffected. Also, there should be one of those harmony shrines right here in Stagonia."

"Well, I'm going to find it right now." Cobalt said, jetting out of the room in a whirlwind of papers.

Rainbow sighed. "I'm so sorry. I'd better go and stop him from doing something stupid. I have the elements with me anyway." She left in a similar fashion.

Pickle raised a huge bushy eyebrow. "Are they always–"

"Yes." Scootaloo and Miles interrupted in unison.

AT THE ELEMENT OF GENEROSITY SHRINE

Cobalt stared blankly at the contents of the shrine, not knowing what to do. When he'd entered the temple that housed the shrine, he was transfixed by a purple light emanating from the shrine itself. When he'd looked closer, he'd seen the purple chaos emerald staring back up at him. Take his earlier experience around an emerald and his lack of an element to revive, and he was in a pickle. (**Teehee!**)

He heard hoofsteps on the ground behind him, and turned around to see Rainbow trotting up to him. "Hey! Don't just rush off without thinking!" she scolded him.

"But it's what I do." He whined jokingly. Instantly, though he was back to business. "Okay, there's an emerald here and I don't have an element. I can't touch the emerald, but since it's purple I think this is the shrine for generosity."

"I can help that." She said, snatching the emerald out of the shrine and replacing it with the element of generosity. The gray element she'd placed in the shrine hovered out of the little bowl and exploded with purple light. When the burst had cleared, the element had turned purple again, and the gilded collar was turned golden once more.

"I could've done _that_," Cobalt muttered.

Rainbow shoved him. "Don't ruin it."

As they spoke, they could feel a slight sensation of falling, and then it stopped. The two assumed this was the planet piece slipping back into place. This was confirmed when Miles caught up to them. "Hey guys! Stagonia's back where it's supposed to be!"

"That's awesome!" Cobalt exclaimed. "But you came here for something else, didn't you? Spill it."

"You guessed it." Miles said. "You're gonna have to come back to the study. Professor Pickle's got a perfect plan."

"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickle peppers…" Rainbow muttered sarcastically as the three took off towards the study.

**I procrastinated again. Sorry about that.**


	6. Marezuri

**Hello, comrades! It is I, the knight of radicool! Yeah, I don't do that well with openers. Moving on with the chapter now.**

**werewolf lover99: Yes, the policy stands that I do not use fan characters, because I feel this makes the story less… centered around the characters it is supposed to be centered around.**

**flutterlikeanangel: Cool then.**

**spisaacman: Yeah I am!**

**RandomPerson65: ****_Surprisingly?_**** Nitpick away. Yes.**

"So, what does Pickle want?" Rainbow asked as the three flew side by side back to downtown Stagonia as the sun peaked. "Has he found something weird?"

"Not really." Miles confessed. "When he told me to get you two, he was muttering something about how he'd devised the perfect plan for finding all the shrines."

"Oh?" Cobalt commented. "Do tell, that sounds interesting."

Miles rubbed behind his ear nervously. "Well, he said he wanted to tell you himself." The others rightly interpreted that as his way of saying he had no idea.

"Okay then." Cobalt ran his hoof through his mane impatiently. "Did he say _anything_?"

"Um, something about a place in Marezuri." Miles recalled.

"Marezuri?" Rainbow asked confusedly.

"Where the zebras are from." The yellow pegasus explained.

"Oh, so like Zecora's hometown." Cobalt realized. "Huh, no wonder her house's got such strange decorations."

"Wait a minute, does this mean that we're on the other side of the Everfree Forest?" Rainbow asked worriedly. "But that's impossible!"

"I think it definitely is." Miles agreed. "It seems as if the forest acts as some sort of divider line for the part we're from and the part where the wild things are from. It's said that the gates to Tartarus are in there, and that it covers an expansive area of the globe. Thankfully, the temples that control those planet pieces are all in separate parts of Equestria."

"Good, we won't have to go in there." She sighed. "That's a relief. That place scares me."

"Big, tough Rainbow Dash scared of a forest?" Cobalt laughed. "That's hilarious."

Rainbow's face turned red with anger. "You already knew that!"

"Did I?" he thought. "Oh yeah, you told me that one time when we were up against Nightmare Moon." They touched down on the ground. "I remember. You were so scared that I had to do this." He draped a wing over her back.

"Yeah, and a little before that was when I first started to like you." She added, revealing her secret. "I had a crush on you almost ever since I met you."

"And I didn't?" Cobalt snorted, pressing the side of his head against hers. She returned the gesture.

"Isn't that nice?" they heard an old voice call out. "Young love." All three whirled around to see Professor Pickle looking out at them from the second floor of the building. "Purely platonic, I presume."

"I certainly hope." Miles added, shooting a glance at the two.

"Oh come on…" Cobalt muttered, lowering and shaking his head slowly. He quickly looked upward at the professor and started asking rapid-fire questions. "Okay, what do you need us for? Where are we going next? Exactly what, where, and how?"

"Stop going so fast, youngster." Pickle put up a foreleg to stop him talking. "Now what is going on here?"

"_You_ called _us_ here." Rainbow reminded him.

"Ah, yes." The professor held up a map. "After careful examination, I've gleaned that the next temple is most surely in a nearby country called Marezuri. I'm sure you can find that on your maps."

Quickly, Rainbow pulled out her limited map of Equestria and scanned it. "Nope. Nothing here. All I've got is Horsoska and Gallopbat. Stagonia isn't even on here."

"That must be because of that Everfree Forest dividing thing that I mentioned earlier." Miles reasoned. "Here, you can borrow mine." He showed her a big map of the entire planet of Equestria. "It's only a few thousand miles from here."

"How long, in that case?" Cobalt considered.

"A nine hour flight going at a constant of 60 miles per hour." Scootaloo answered, coming out of the lab doors. "Professor Pickle taught me the calculations of time by turning miles into hours."

"Ah, yes." Pickle nodded. "This one's a good scholar, she is."

"I'd bet." Agreed Miles.

Scootaloo spontaneously blushed. "Um, Miles and I have decided we're staying with Professor Pickle to help him with his research, given as that was the only dark energy barrier too tall for you all to cross on your own."

"Oh! I'm going with _you_ two!" Chip fluttered out of the lab. "I can't wait to see the world!"

"Neither can I, buddy." Cobalt said, offering him a seat on his back. "Let's go on to Marezuri!"

A VERY FAR WAY AWAY…

Back in Ponyville, a very busy Twilight Sparkle had stopped to take a look at the notes she had on two stallions whose pasts were seeming closer together than they'd ever been before: Cobalt Spikes and Shadow.

Last time Twilight and Shadow had met, when he and Cobalt had been in conflict, she'd performed most basic of memory reading spells and recorded her results in a little journal titled _notes on impossible things_, a name she'd chosen after reading the first memory in writing. It seemed that Shadow's memories were filled with ponies that walked upright. Almost like the humans, but stranger even that that. They seemed to be almost like ponies with human characteristics.

But what really commanded her focus was the burning hated toward Cobalt that seemed to be almost instinctual in Shadow's memory. The two had had clashes before, it seemed, about things that were now gone from Cobalt's mind. But some of these memories seemed twisted from proportion to what a normal pony would think of, which was obviously because she was getting only rudimentary images and pictures of things. The more she thought about it, the whole upright pony thing might just be custom to where Shadow was from.

There was one point of the memory, though, that commanded her attention more than any of the others. It was so blotted out that it seemed as if Shadow was deliberately trying to erase it from his mind. And then just after that, the light in which the memories presented themselves turned murderous, and then he met Gilda. Then his memory just stopped after the duration of time that the Dimension X escapade, besides the whole warning attack on Cobalt.

So this confirmed two things: one, Shadow knew Cobalt well before he lost his memory, and that something had happened so bad that Shadow had permanently wiped his mind of it. Twilight briefly recalled that Cobalt had described a black presence to her and the rest that he'd seen during his super transformation. From the gist of her understanding, the thing seemed to have been hunting him, and cornered him, only failing to kill him due to the fact that he'd been jerked out of that dream quickly enough to evade it.

But much still didn't add up. In fact, the stuff that she didn't know got under her skin so much that she broke her quill by writing too hard out of pure frustration. She growled, levitating a new one over with her magic, and once again tried to put puzzle pieces that weren't fully there together.

MAREZURI

The two pegasi and Chip (who had been hunkered down in Rainbow's saddlebags for most of the trip) landed in the deep jungles of Marezuri. A greeting committee of about five zebras with… style… similar to Zecora's strode out to meet them. "Greetings, ponies from another land. Are you the only three of your band?"

"Ah, so that's where Zecora got the rhymes from." Cobalt realized. "Yeah, we're the only three."

"Good welcome here, you will find, but only if you are of peaceful mind." The same zebra spoke again.

Rainbow noticed the mark on each of the zebras that was where a pony's cutie mark would be was exactly the same as Zecora's, that spiral with the sun type design, indicating that all the zebras probably had the same mark. "Soooo… you all have the same cutie mark?"

"What is this cutie mark of which you say?" another zebra asked.

"Fellow, that is talk for another day." A third silenced him.

Cobalt was already beginning to be creeped out by all this rhyming. It was fine when it was just Zecora, but having nearly everypony… or in this case, everyzebra… who was able to be talked to speak in rhyme was very unnerving.

Thankfully, or perhaps unthankfully, they were spared further conversation when a familiar noise sounded from above. "Greetings, zebras of Marezuri!" said a very familiar voice. A _despised_ voice. Eggman's. He was descending down in his Eggmobile on the small village the pegasi and Chip had landed in. "Please bow to your new ruler!"

"What?!" Rainbow Dash yelled up at him indignantly. "So you must think you can come in here and take over, huh?!"

"Oh, it's you." Eggman said loathingly, looking down in distaste. "Pesky ponies indeed." His expression suddenly changed, though, into a look of amusement. "Although I'm sure the zebras I'm about to conquer are much more compliant than those of _your_ breed."

"Our breed?! Our _breed_?!" Rainbow growled. "I swear I oughtta…" she pounded her hooves together threateningly and gritted her teeth.

Cobalt rested a hoof on her shoulder calmingly. "Be cool. Don't let your temper–"

"I don't know why I haven't just destroyed you yet." Eggman scoffed.

"Okay, that is IT!" Rainbow exploded, flying up and bucking the Eggmobile as hard as she could in anger. Eggman' ship spiraled into the sky, sinking below the treeline a few hundred feet away. Rainbow looked pleased with herself, hovering in the air and crossing her forehooves in satisfaction. "There, I think that solves it."

"Hmm? Wazzat?" Chip's groggy voice sounded from her saddlebags. He poked open the flap just in time to see a giant robot shaped remarkably like the face of a very large beetle clear the treeline and start to hover over. "Gah!" he zipped off to hide behind the hind leg of the greeting party leader zebra.

"Come _on_, Eggman!" Cobalt complained. "We're just trying to save the world here, and it doesn't help that you get in the way!"

"And I'm trying to take _over_ the world, so you getting in the way doesn't help me!" Eggman returned the accusation.

"Fine, you want to fight?" Cobalt growled, joining his friend in the air.

"Yeah?" Rainbow added angrily.

"Fine! Fight we shall!" he started driving his newest menace in reverse along a long tree branch, daring the two to follow.

"It is _on_!" Rainbow yelled after him. The two pegasi sped after him.

BACK WITH TWILIGHT

Twilight was still trying to make some sort of conclusion at the ties with Cobalt and Shadow's past. She knew that they had some sort of shared past, but she also knew that it seemed extremely rocky. Definitely not friends.

There was one name that showed up in both of their pasts, and that was Eggman. That would tie in with the fact that Eggman seemed to know everything about Cobalt's past. But another name that was a lot in Shadow's memories was Black Doom. It was associated with darkness, but that was pretty much all she could get out of it.

She hit her head on the table a few times to clear her thoughts, sighing and holding her head in pain afterward. "Ugh, I need more information to get anywhere on this."

MAREZURI

Meanwhile, Rainbow and Cobalt were being brutally beated by the robot. Once they got too near to it, Eggman activated its self-defense mode and delivered a few fresh scrapes and bruises to them. It was clear that they wouldn't be able to keep this up for much longer and keep their lives. One particularly bad whack sent Cobalt spiraling into a tree backward with a sickening crunching sound. He screamed in pain, sliding down the tree to the ground and collapsing. "Ohhh…"

Rainbow Dash instantly turned around and zipped to his side, quickly examining the problem. She pulled a wing out from behind his back and grimaced at the state of it. "Broken…" she murmured as he winced with the touch. "Stay here while I finish the jerk off."

"Thanks..." he panted, gritting his teeth in the agony.

"So, do you surrender?" Eggman asked from higher up in the air, looking down from his vehicle.

"No!" Rainbow looked up, her eyes burning in defiance. "Seriously?"

"Well, it's a fair question." The evil genius shrugged. "Resume battle?"

"DUH!"

After that, the battle went quickly and decisively. Rainbow found the robot's weakness, that when it opened its pincers she could buck it in its weak spot, right where the eyes would be if there had been any. Pretty soon it was so damaged that Eggman had to bail and go into maximum overdrive to get away. The robot sunk down under the trees and a few seconds later it created a giant mushroom cloud explosion that sent foliage flying.

As soon as Rainbow saw there were no other threats, she shot like a bullet back over to the now unconscious Cobalt and carried him back to the village. They of course returned to tumultuous cheering, but that faltered quickly when they saw their state. The healers of the village came forth with bandages and quickly patched the scratches. But they were puzzled when they came to the problem of the whole broken and cut up wings.

"It's fine." She assured them with a smile. "We just need somewhere to stay for a while."

The zebra who had first greeted them led them to a little cottage-type house a little deeper in the woods. "In this place you shall reside, for saving us from that madman that we need not hide."

"Thanks!" Rainbow nodded goodbye and carried Cobalt on her back into the cottage, setting him on (thankfully) one of the cots gently, laying him so that he wasn't hurting his wings.

LATER

That evening, once she was sure that every…zebra was out of the vicinity, she cradled his fractured wings, gently feeling them to find the fractures. There was a bad one near the base (she blushed madly at this one, that was a very sensitive spot to pegasi), and a few scattered everywhere else.

Cobalt stirred slowly under her touch. "Ugh, sorry for passing out there." His eyes quickly moved downward. "What are you doing?"

Rainbow suddenly realized how what she was doing might look to someone who didn't know the context. "Checking for fractures!" she explained quickly, almost shouting in her urgency to get the situation across to him.

"It seems like you're doing something else…" he grinned devilishly.

"Eep…" she muttered, sounding, once again, like Fluttershy, as she grimaced and looked away. She hated when he made her feel so embarrassed and uncomfortable.

"Don't worry, I'm just messin' with ya." He laughed at her relieved look. "So, did you beat Eggman?"

She grinned. "Yep. It was easy. You passed out for a few hours."

"Heh." He narrowed his eyes like he just remembered something important. "Wait, how long does it take wing fractures to heal?"

"Couple of days." She shrugged. "Not long."

"So we're stuck here till then?" He sighed.

"Yeah."

He looked downcast for a second, but that was fleeting. "Okay. Let's find the temple tomorrow, okay?"

"Sounds like a plan." She agreed, giving him a gentle hug, once again trying not to crush his wings.

TWILIGHT'S POV

I'd almost figured it out! I swear, I was so close I could taste it! But something, a dark force… it just destroyed the memories I was working with! I seriously just needed _one_ _more_ connection for everything to make sense!

Ugh… now I have to do _everything_ over again.

**Well that's a wrap. Sorry for the lateness. My parents took away my internet away for a while. Whatever… now I'm back.**


	7. Rematch and Third Temple

**Hello again. I've been expecting you. No I haven't… disregard.**

**RandomPerson65: I'll be addressing that in the beginning, which is also how I get them out of Marezuri.**

Cobalt woke up the next morning to the sound of a chainsaw. Said chainsaw was busy sawing off the roof. "Aah!" He sat up very quickly and rolled out of his cot and consequently the way of the blade, which sawed the rough fabric in half. "What the hay?!"

Rainbow Dash, however, was a sounder sleeper, and merely rolled over on accident, avoiding the saw purely on chance. "Five more minutes…" came the sleepy mutter from the tired pegasus.

Cobalt immediately got to his hooves and dashed out the door. "Hey!"

The same robot that had plagued the town just the day before stopped the blade halfway through sawing something that sounded very tough to cut through. _And thankfully_. Cobalt thought to himself. _Because that tough thing could just have easily been flesh, and that would've been my friend._

When he didn't get a response from the robot's pilot (he knew very well who that was), Cobalt narrowed his eyes and shouted even louder. "OI! EGGFACE!"

Where the thought to use that odd interjection came from is still unknown.

That got Eggman's attention. The little bubble in the beetle robot's forehead where the mad scientist had parked his (patent pending) Eggmobile opened up, and it swerved to give Eggman a better view of his foe. "Pest! I thought I broke your back yesterday!"

"Nope! Only my wings!" Cobalt informed him, taking a battle stance.

"Hah!" Eggman roared with laughter. "Well that's a pity; your wings are your only strength!"

"You're gonna eat those words, gigglebox!"

And they launched themselves at each other.

MEANWHILE, IN PONYVILLE

Pinkie Pie, the enthusiastic party pony of Ponyville (say that ten times fast…), was, as usual, bouncing around without a care in the world except for the fact that her friends had been missing for a while.

She suddenly stopped and gained a puzzled expression, staring at the black cat with a notepad in a nearby tree. "Hey wait a second… why am I supposed to say that ten times fast?"

No, please don't do this again. It gets too hard to write.

"Write? Hey wait a minute…" she screwed up her face in thought. "If you're the writer, then don't you know what's going to happen?"

Yes… why?

"Then why don't you tell us so we can be prepared?"

Well… I certainly could… but you see…

ONE INCREDIBLY WELL PLACED TRANSITION LATER

_Anyway_, it is needless to say that the two pegasi's friends were getting worried, with their friends having been gone several days. So worried, in fact, that Twilight Sparkle had called a meeting to discuss what was going on.

"So, has anyone seen them since that nasty bit with Discord?" Rarity asked, sipping the tea that she was holding up with her magic.

Twilight shrugged. "They grabbed the elements and left just the day after." She felt a twinge of embarrassment as she realized she hadn't noticed how long it had been. "To be honest, I've been thinking about other things since then."

"I wonder what they're doing." Fluttershy voiced her question on the matter.

Applejack smirked. "They just got together in a real relationship… d'ya _really_ want to know?"

"I wasn't thinking like that…" the yellow pegasus muttered. "Pervert…"

"If you all a _quite_ done with speculating the nasty about our friends." Rarity interrupted bluntly, causing the two who had alluded such to blush heavily. "I believe that they will return eventually."

"Of course they will!" Pinkie agreed. "It's not like they're going to just abandon us!"

"Hopefully." Twilight said darkly.

BACK IN MAREZURI

Cobalt was quickly realizing that trying not to use his wings was proving less effective than just giving into the pain of trying to flap them. He was entirely forced to do just that as the chainsaw blade made a vicious swipe at him, he was too slow to roll away, so he had to flap his wings and… fly out of the way?

Now he knew that shouldn't be possible. If he remembered the previous day correctly, he'd broken them against a tree… and now they were fine? That couldn't happen. He was dreaming… or something. But as he circled around the robot, he became more and more convinced that they'd somehow healed themselves overnight. Maybe transferring in and out of the werepony form had had something to do with it.

Anyways, he was being as awesome as usual, almost daring the robot to slash at him with the saw. Of course it missed every time, Cobalt was using the lack of mobility for the robot against it, making the saw blade its only attack… and only defense…

Taking to opportunity when it presented itself, he rushed forward and began to pummel the robot's weak spot. "And that's for trying to kill me every time you see me!" he shouted as Eggman ejected and the robot exploded. "Now why do you hate me so much?!"

The evil scientist sneered at him out of the Eggmobile. "You wouldn't understand. You don't remember what you made me do!"

"Yeah, and that's the exact problem!" Cobalt exploded frustratedly. "I _can't_ remember what I made you do, so will you just tell me?!"

"No!" Eggman was beginning to sound a little crazy. "You could never cope, knowing your history!"

"Why does everypony think my history is something I shouldn't know?!" the dark blue pegasus felt like he wanted to strangle something at the moment. "Or something that I should die for?!"

"Because it would drive you mad." Eggman responded simply. "And your friends would abandon you for it if they knew."

"What did I do?!"

"YOU'RE A MURDERER!" Eggman spat, and it felt like a bombshell had gone off. The utter silence afterward attested to that. "HAPPY?!" he hovered into the sky once more, leaving Cobalt with a blow worse than any broken wings.

_Murderer_… that was the word that plagued his thoughts as he went back inside to wake Rainbow Dash. Murderer… murderer… murderer… that was the term he now was assigned. He couldn't get the word out of his mind. Maybe he'd had to forget, just because he needed to get the horrible guilt out of his mind. He'd read about ponies doing that before. Losing their minds because of the horrible, unbearable guilt that they'd done something that was irreversible… something that hurt themselves or somepony else worse than they could cope with.

Had he lost his mind and become somepony else?

Filing all these new bad emotions and thoughts away along with all the others, he gently nudged his girlfriend's face. "Hey, wake up."

"Mmph." She mumbled, her face in the pillow.

"Wake up." He repeated, putting his hoof on the side of her face. "It's morning and I'm ready to go."

She raised her head slightly, blearily blinking the sleep out of her eyes. "S'it been five minutes already?" she asked, her speech slurred a little, still half unconscious.

"More than five." Cobalt muttered. "Also, I'm a murderer."

That woke her up. "WHAT?!" she exclaimed, her eyes wide in terror. "Who did you kill?!"

"Nopony." Cobalt responded monotonously. "That's just what Eggman told me."

"Eggman?" Rainbow's expression became a lot lighter. "Oh, he just said that to mess with you. That's impossible. I know you, and you wouldn't do something like that."

"Still…" he muttered, not convinced.

She got a little bit angry at this. "Listen to yourself! I will not let you think of yourself like that!" the anger turned quickly into a sad look. "Honestly, you're a good pony and I won't let you believe you're a murderer. You would _never_ murder. Just… never."

Cobalt gritted his teeth and inhaled through them. "Okay. Innocent until proven guilty, I guess."

"Exactly."

MAREZURI TEMPLE

The usual colored light that emitted from the chaos emerald placed in the temple was there as expected, and the light was red, meaning that the red emerald was there. However something was there that was _un_expected: Chip waiting at the entrance.

The mysterious creature took a relaxed seat on the stone that embodied the entrance to the underground temple. "Took you long enough." He yawned. "I've been waiting for hours."

"Oh, so _that's _where you got off to!" Rainbow realized.

"You get here last night?" Cobalt asked.

Chip sat up, seeming to experience more gravity to the ground than usual, probably since he'd been sitting for a while. "Well, I went to check up on you last night… nasty wing damage, Cobalt, glad you got that fixed… but yeah, since last night."

"Long time to sit, isn't it?" Cobalt asked.

"Yeah, I've got the biggest cramp in my bu–"

Rainbow coughed and interrupted whatever he'd been about to say. "Can we go now?"

"But I was just about to tell Cobalt about the cramp in my bu–"

"Yes." Rainbow nodded. "And that is the exact reason why I want to get going."

IN THE DEPTHS OF THE TEMPLE

There was yet another surprise waiting for them. Said surprise was more enemies, but not robots or anything of the like, but dark creatures that seemed to appear where the natural light of the sun was obscured by the shadows. They were taller than the ponies and had large white eyes, obscured faces, humanlike structure, and arms that ended in three claws. Their entire bodies seemed to be made out of black smoke and darkness.

Worse yet, the ponies were robbed of their natural speed, for when they stepped into the darkness, it seemed to simulate nighttime and incited their werepony transformation.

"Oh shoot…" Cobalt muttered nervously as he realized how the tables had quickly turned against them.

Rainbow Dash's response was instead outrage. "What?! It's daytime; why is this happening now?!"

It appeared that Chip got braver almost overnight, because instead of running, he stood his ground beside his monstrous allies.

It took Cobalt about one second to realize that they were going to have to fight… or that might've just been the primal fight or flight instinct of the werepony form… and he took a ready stance that he might've taken before flight, even though he was sure that those bat wings could hardly support his weight, and not for long at that.

Following his lead, Rainbow dropped down into a stance of the same type and the two charged. Some of the creatures may have been minding their own business beforehand, but now they all dove on our heroes with a ferocity greater than that of an ursa major.

The fight seemed equally matched to begin with, and Cobalt was pleased to see that when he glanced over, Chip had launched himself on the face on one of the creatures, taking an active role in a fight this time. But the tables quickly turned when one of the creatures reached into the basin that held the emerald, and red lightning streaked from it, touching each of the other creatures and seeming to empower them. Rainbow got a backhand to the face that seemed to have its power doubled and was knocked back into the wall of the temple. "Owww…"

"Dash!" Cobalt said, startled at this. He rounded on the creatures. "Oh, you are in for it now!"

Their expressionless faces showed no fear.

After a while, Cobalt was finding it extremely hard to keep them away from the place where Rainbow lay unconscious. He was being pressed so hard that he could scarcely turn around to check on her. In fact when he finally turned around, her limp form had disappeared.

This broke his concentration, and when he lost his focus for one second the creatures pressed him so hard that he was knocked back with nearly the same force as had knocked Rainbow out. He hit the wall hard and slid back down. "Oof!"

_Well, this is it_. He thought as the creatures closed in on him. _At least I had a good run… as far as I can remember, anyway_.

Suddenly, he heard a familiar voice yell, "_NO_!" and the creatures were vaporized by a pure red light that didn't hurt his eyes, but instead strengthened him.

When the light cleared, the creatures were just piles of ash, and Rainbow Dash was sprawled on her stomach on the ground, all four legs splayed out and back to her normal form, as was he. "Did we do it?" she asked, raising her head. She looked woozy and had a dumb looking smile on her face.

"Yeah, we did it." he said, returning the smile and trotting over to her. "How do you feel?"

"Dizzy, confused, nauseous, but awesome." Her grin widened. "As usual."

"It seemed like you channeled the emerald. How'd you do that?"

"Not the emerald." She said after a moment of thought. "I snuck over here after faking passing out and pulled out the element of loyalty. It sparked with the emerald and I saw you getting cornered and everything went white." This inspired another moment of thought. "Why do I feel sick, though?"

"I think you overloaded a little trying to use the energy the element along with the emerald produced all on your own." Cobalt suggested. "The elements are supposed to be used as a group, not on their own."

She suppressed a wave of nausea and kept the grin. "Yep. Definitely not by one pony herself." And with that her vision went black and she passed out for real.


End file.
